This is a list of animated short films produced by Pixar Animation Studios .
160-424: Beginning with Pixar's first film Toy Story , almost all subsequent Pixar feature films have been shown in theaters along with a Pixar-created original short film , known as a "short." Other Pixar shorts, released only on home media, were created to showcase Pixar's technology or cinematic capabilities, or on commission for clients. Pixar began producing shorts in the 1980s. The first shorts were made while Pixar
320-407: A 100% approval rating on film aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes . The film is frequently lauded as one of the best animated films ever made and, due to its status as the first computer-animated film, one of the most important films in the medium's history and film at large. The film received three Academy Award nominations— Best Original Screenplay (the first animated film to be nominated for
480-454: A Barbie doll; the latter transformed into Bo Peep as Mattel would not license the character. Whedon also re-visioned Buzz Lightyear from being a dim-witted but cheerful and self-aware character to an action figure who isn't aware that he's a toy—an epiphany that transformed the film. A brainstorming session with members of Disney Animation's creative team resulted in the addition of the three-eyed squeaky toy aliens . Katzenberg approved
640-519: A 10- to 15-percent distribution fee. The two companies attempted to reach a new agreement for ten months and failed on January 26, 2001, July 26, 2002, April 22, 2003, January 16, 2004, July 22, 2004, and January 14, 2005. The proposed distribution deal meant Pixar would control production and own the resulting story, character, and sequel rights, while Disney would own the right of first refusal to distribute any sequels. Pixar also wanted to finance its own films and collect 100 percent profit, paying Disney
800-571: A 20- acre site in Emeryville, California , formerly occupied by Del Monte Foods , Inc. The first of several buildings, the high-tech structure designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson has special foundations and electricity generators to ensure continued film production, even through major earthquakes . The character of the building is intended to abstractly recall Emeryville's industrial past. The two-story steel-and-masonry building
960-514: A 2023 interview, Pixar's president Jim Morris stated that one of the reasons why their films have expensive budgets is because they are produced entirely in the U.S. with all of the artists under one roof, while almost all of their competitors keep costs down by doing work offshore. As of September 2022, six Pixar films have received or will receive sequels or prequels. These films are Toy Story , Cars , Monsters, Inc. , Finding Nemo , The Incredibles , and Inside Out . Toy Story 2
1120-515: A box office comeback by early August 2023, crossing $ 400 million at the worldwide box office. Disney's EVP of Theatrical Distribution Tony Chambers stated "After a disappointing opening weekend, we're really pleased that audiences have discovered what a great movie it is." That same month, Morris said "at the box office we're looking at now, [the film] should do better than break even theatrically. And then we have revenue from streaming , theme parks and consumer products . This will certainly be
1280-538: A chance (based on his own experience negotiating with Iger in summer 2005 for the rights to ABC shows for the fifth-generation iPod Classic ), and in turn, Iger convinced them of the sincerity of his feeling that Disney needed to re-focus on animation. Lasseter and Catmull's oversight of both the Disney Feature Animation and Pixar studios did not mean that the two studios were merging, however. In fact, additional conditions were laid out as part of
1440-474: A computer-animated feature became feasible according to Moore's law . At the time, Walt Disney Studios made the decision to develop more efficient ways of producing animation. They reached out to Graphics Group at Lucasfilm and to Digital Productions . Because of the Graphics Group's deeper understanding of animation, and Smith's experience with paint programs at NYIT, it convinced Disney they were
1600-523: A computer-animated short to showcase the Apple Macintosh II line. Although Pixar was not officially affiliated with this film, several members of the Pixar staff advised and worked on it, including directors John Lasseter , Andrew Stanton , and producer Galyn Susman. John Lasseter was credited as "Coach" in the credits of the film. Some of their other work includes: The Pixar Co-op Program,
1760-481: A consulting role until then. Pete Docter was announced as Lasseter's replacement as chief creative officer of Pixar on June 19, 2018. On June 15, 2018, Incredibles 2 was released, setting a record for widest opening weekend worldwide and domestic for an animated film. The film would eventually gross $ 1.2 billion worldwide. On October 23, 2018, it was announced that Catmull would be retiring. He stayed in an adviser role until July 2019. On January 18, 2019, it
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#17327979055061920-463: A deal allowing him to make it as a Disney film outside the studio. This allowed Pixar to make their movies outside Disney. Both sides were willing. Catmull and fellow Pixar co-founder Alvy Ray Smith had long wanted to produce a computer-animated feature, but only by the early 1990s were the computers cheap and powerful enough to make this possible. In addition, Disney had licensed Pixar's Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), and that made it
2080-458: A deal with General Motors which fell through three days before signing the contracts. Jobs, who had been edged out of Apple in 1985, was now founder and CEO of the new computer company NeXT . On February 3, 1986, he paid $ 5 million of his own money to George Lucas for technology rights and invested $ 5 million cash as capital into the company, joining the board of directors as chairman. In 1985 while still at Lucasfilm, they had made
2240-538: A deal with the Japanese publisher Shogakukan to make a computer-animated movie called Monkey , based on the Monkey King . The project continued sometime after they became a separate company in 1986, but it became clear that the technology was not sufficiently advanced. The computers were not powerful enough and the budget would be too high. As a result, they focused on the computer hardware business for years until
2400-415: A director, or I can stay here and make history." Katzenberg realized he could not lure Lasseter back to Disney and therefore set plans into motion to ink a production deal with Pixar to produce a film. Disney had always made all their movies in-house and refused to change this. But when Tim Burton , who used to work at Disney, wanted to buy back the rights to The Nightmare Before Christmas , Disney struck
2560-643: A division of Disney Entertainment , a segment of The Walt Disney Company . Pixar started in 1979 as part of the Lucasfilm computer division. It was known as the Graphics Group before its spin-off as a corporation in 1986, with funding from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs who became its majority shareholder . Disney announced its acquisition of Pixar in January 2006, and completed it in May 2006. Pixar
2720-403: A domestic opening of $ 154 million, the third highest for an animated film, and the biggest global opening for an animated movie with $ 294 million. Since then the film broke multiple box office records. It had the highest second weekend gross for an animated film with $ 100 million, being the first to reach the 6 digit second opening weekend. It became the fastest animated movie to reach $ 1 billion at
2880-434: A financial analysis that confirmed that Disney had actually lost money on animation for the past decade, then presented that information to the board of directors at his first board meeting after being promoted from COO to CEO, and the board, in turn, authorized him to explore the possibility of a deal with Pixar. Lasseter and Catmull were wary when the topic of Disney buying Pixar first came up, but Jobs asked them to give Iger
3040-590: A great company." After a lengthy hiatus, negotiations between the two companies resumed following the departure of Eisner from Disney in September 2005. In preparation for potential fallout between Pixar and Disney, Jobs announced in late 2004 that Pixar would no longer release movies at the Disney-dictated November time frame, but during the more lucrative early summer months. This would also allow Pixar to release DVDs for its major releases during
3200-412: A half-hour special, they might as well go all the way and make a feature-length film. Katzenberg also made it clear that he was only working with Pixar to get access to Lasseter's talents, and that the Pixar team would be signing up to work with a self-described "tyrant" and micro-manager. However, he invited them to talk with Disney's animators and get their opinions on working under him and Lasseter
3360-451: A historic $ 26 million deal with Disney to produce three computer-animated feature films, the first of which was Toy Story (1995), the product of the technological limitations that challenged CGI. By then the software programmers working on RenderMan and IceMan, and Lasseter's animation department, which made television commercials (and four Luxo Jr. shorts for Sesame Street the same year), were all that remained of Pixar. Despite
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#17327979055063520-403: A hit, and confirming that Disney would distribute it for the 1995 Christmas season, he decided to give Pixar another chance. Also for the first time, he took an active leadership role in the company and made himself CEO. Toy Story grossed more than $ 373 million worldwide and, when Pixar held its initial public offering on November 29, 1995, it exceeded Netscape 's as the biggest IPO of
3680-471: A job at his studio, six employees moved to Lucasfilm . During the following months, they gradually resigned from CGL, found temporary jobs for about a year to avoid making Schure suspicious, and joined the Graphics Group at Lucasfilm. The Graphics Group, which was one-third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm, was launched in 1979 with the hiring of Catmull from NYIT, where he was in charge of
3840-474: A kindergarten classroom where they can be played with every day, was quite different. Katzenberg was unhappy with the treatment drafted by Lasseter, Andrew Stanton , and Pete Docter , as the two character's motivations were too similar. Instead, he encouraged them to write it as a buddy film , giving the two main characters contrasting personalities, and having them only become friends after being forced to work together. Lasseter, Stanton, and Docter delivered
4000-496: A modern space cadet action figure, Buzz Lightyear , as Woody develops jealousy towards Buzz when he becomes their owner Andy's favorite toy. Following the success of Tin Toy , a short film that was released in 1988, Pixar was approached by Disney to produce a computer-animated feature film that was told from a small toy's perspective. Lasseter, Stanton, and Docter wrote early story treatments, which were rejected by Disney, who wanted
4160-653: A multimedia franchise, spawning three sequels (and a planned fourth sequel) beginning with Toy Story 2 (1999), a spin-off film Lightyear (2022), and numerous short films . The film also had a theatrical 3D re-release in 2009 as part of a double feature with the second film. A group of sentient toys , who pretend to be lifeless when humans are around, are preparing to move into a new house with their young owner Andy Davis , his infant sister Molly , and their single mother Mrs. Davis . Learning that Andy's birthday party has been unexpectedly moved to an earlier date, several toys — including Mr. Potato Head , Slinky Dog , Rex
4320-417: A new budget, but the incident led Jobs to rethink their deal with Disney. We couldn't have made this movie in traditional animation. This is a story that can only really be told with three-dimensional toy characters. ... Some of the shots in this film are so beautiful. —Tom Schumacher, Vice President of Walt Disney Feature Animation Recruiting animators for Toy Story was brisk; the magnet for talent
4480-640: A number of other actors, including Jason Alexander , Dan Aykroyd , Matthew Broderick , Kevin Costner , Michael J. Fox , Richard Gere , David Hasselhoff , Michael Keaton , Wayne Knight , Bill Paxton , Dennis Quaid , Kurt Russell , Adam Sandler and John Travolta , were also considered for the role of Buzz. Lasseter took the role to Tim Allen , who was appearing in Disney's Home Improvement , and he accepted. Crystal later stated in an interview that he would not have been right as Buzz, and that Allen
4640-656: A parade at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park in Florida. It was screenwriter Joss Whedon's idea to incorporate Barbie as a character who could rescue Woody and Buzz in Toy Story ' s final act. The idea was dropped after Mattel objected and refused to license the toy. Producer Ralph Guggenheim claimed that Mattel did not allow the use of the toy as "They [Mattel] philosophically felt girls who play with Barbie dolls are projecting their personalities onto
4800-480: A part of the Pixar University professional development program, allows their animators to use Pixar resources to produce independent films. Some of their Co-op work includes: A half-hour television sequel to the short Tin Toy was considered, but Pixar felt convinced they could produce a feature film. The project later became Toy Story . In 2013, it was revealed a fourth short of Toy Story Toons
4960-464: A place on the Disney board of directors. After the deal closed in May 2006, Lasseter revealed that Iger had felt that Disney needed to buy Pixar while watching a parade at the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland in September 2005. Iger noticed that of all the Disney characters in the parade, none were characters that Disney had created within the last ten years since all the newer ones had been created by Pixar. Upon returning to Burbank, Iger commissioned
List of Pixar shorts - Misplaced Pages Continue
5120-408: A process somewhat like peer review , as opposed to the traditional Hollywood approach of an "executive-driven studio" in which directors are micromanaged through "mandatory notes" from development executives outranking the producers. According to Catmull, it evolved out of the working relationship between Lasseter, Andrew Stanton , Pete Docter , Lee Unkrich , and Joe Ranft on Toy Story . As
5280-538: A profitable film for the Disney company." In December 2023, it was announced that Soul , Turning Red and Luca would be released in theaters in the United States in the first quarter of 2024. In January 2024, it was reported that Pixar's staff would face imminent layoffs by 20 percent, reducing the studio's workforce to less than 1,000 employees. However, the layoffs were then delayed and did not occur, reportedly because of production schedules. In May 2024,
5440-472: A pull-string (hence the name "Woody"). This was until character designer Bud Luckey suggested that Woody could be changed to a cowboy ventriloquist dummy. Lasseter liked the contrast between the Western and the science fiction genres and the character immediately changed. Eventually, all of the ventriloquist dummy aspects of the character were deleted as the dummy looked "sneaky and mean". However they kept
5600-408: A really bad musical because it's a buddy movie. It's about people who won't admit what they want, much less sing about it. ... Buddy movies are about sublimating, punching an arm, 'I hate you.' It's not about open emotion." However, Disney preferred to make it a musical, as they had had much success with incorporating Broadway -style musical numbers into their animated films, and encouraged Pixar to do
5760-725: A restaurant visit in 1981, but when interviewing them he got four different versions about the origin of the name. In 1982, the Pixar team began working on special-effects film sequences with Industrial Light & Magic . After years of research, and key milestones such as the Genesis Effect in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and the Stained Glass Knight in Young Sherlock Holmes , the group, which then numbered 40 individuals,
5920-556: A result of the success of Toy Story , Pixar built a new studio at the Emeryville campus which was designed by PWP Landscape Architecture and opened in November 2000. Pixar and Disney had disagreements over the production of Toy Story 2 . Originally intended as a direct-to-video release (and thus not part of Pixar's three-picture deal), the film was eventually upgraded to a theatrical release during production. Pixar demanded that
6080-404: A revised treatment in September 1991 that more closely resembles the final version of the film: Tinny replaces the ventriloquist dummy as a child's favorite toy, their bickering causes them to be left behind at a gas station, they almost catch up to the family at a pizza restaurant, they have to escape a kid that mutilates toys, and the movie ends with a chase scene as the two toys try to catch up to
6240-413: A staff of 800. In the early budgeting process, Jobs was eager to produce the film as efficiently as possible, impressing Katzenberg with his focus on cost-cutting. However, the $ 17 million production budget was no longer going to be sufficient, and Jobs requested more funds from Disney to compensate them for the time lost in rewrites based on Katzenberg's notes. Catmull was able to reach a compromise on
6400-451: A story by Lasseter, Stanton, Pete Docter , and Joe Ranft , produced by Bonnie Arnold and Ralph Guggenheim , and features the voices of Tom Hanks , Tim Allen , Annie Potts , John Ratzenberger , Don Rickles , Wallace Shawn , and Jim Varney . Taking place in a world where toys come to life when humans are not present, the plot of Toy Story focuses on the relationship between an old-fashioned pullstring cowboy doll named Woody and
6560-404: A subsidiary of his Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatres company (PTT), which was founded in 1977. Only one major project was made out of the new studio, an animated Christmas special for NBC starring Chuck E. Cheese and other PTT mascots; known as "Chuck E. Cheese: The Christmas That Almost Wasn't". The animation movement would be made using tweening instead of traditional cel animation. After
List of Pixar shorts - Misplaced Pages Continue
6720-672: A technician at his other company Atari , which Bushnell sold to Warner Communications in 1976 to focus on PTT. PTT would later go bankrupt in 1984 and be acquired by ShowBiz Pizza Place . In 1986, the newly independent Pixar was headed by President Edwin Catmull and Executive Vice President Alvy Ray Smith . Lucas's search for investors led to an offer from Steve Jobs , which Lucas initially found too low. He eventually accepted after determining it impossible to find other investors. At that point, Smith and Catmull had been declined by 35 venture capitalists and ten large corporations, including
6880-617: A tyrant to a wise leader. It also included a more adult-oriented staff meeting amongst the toys rather than the juvenile group discussion that had existed in earlier drafts. Buzz Lightyear's character was also changed "to make it more clear to the audience that he genuinely doesn't know he's a toy". Katzenberg and Schneider resumed production with the new script by February 1994, and the voice actors returned one month later to record their new lines. The crew grew from 24 people to 110, and now included 27 animators and 22 technical directors. In comparison, The Lion King , released in 1994, required
7040-487: Is a 1995 American animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures . The first installment in the Toy Story franchise , it was the first entirely computer-animated feature film , as well as the first feature film from Pixar. The film was directed by John Lasseter (in his feature directorial debut ), written by Joss Whedon , Andrew Stanton , Joel Cohen , and Alec Sokolow based on
7200-569: Is a collaborative space with many pathways. The digital revolution in filmmaking was driven by applied mathematics , including computational physics and geometry . In 2008, this led Pixar senior scientist Tony DeRose to offer to host the second Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival at the Emeryville campus. Some of Pixar's first animators were former cel animators including John Lasseter, and others came from computer animation or were fresh college graduates. A large number of animators that make up its animation department had been hired around
7360-457: Is best known for its feature films , technologically powered by RenderMan , the company's own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan Interface Specification image-rendering API . The studio's mascot is Luxo Jr. , a desk lamp from the studio's 1986 short film of the same name . Pixar has produced 28 feature films , starting with Toy Story (1995), which is the first fully computer-animated feature film; its most recent film
7520-425: Is really a toy. Buzz impresses the others with his high-tech features and becomes Andy's new favorite toy, provoking Woody's jealousy. Two days before the move, Andy's family plans for a dinner at Pizza Planet. To ensure Andy brings him along and not Buzz, Woody tries knocking Buzz behind the desk with RC , the radio-controlled car . However, Buzz is accidentally knocked out of the bedroom window instead, and most of
7680-444: The 1989 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film , the first computer-generated film to do so . Tin Toy gained Disney's attention, and the new team at The Walt Disney Company , CEO Michael Eisner and chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg in the film division , sought to get Lasseter to come back. Lasseter, grateful for Jobs' faith in him, felt compelled to stay with Pixar, telling co-founder Ed Catmull , "I can go to Disney and be
7840-418: The 50 highest-grossing films of all time . Moreover, 15 of Pixar's films are in the 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time . Inside Out 2 is currently the highest grossing animated film of all time. Pixar has earned 23 Academy Awards , 10 Golden Globe Awards , and 11 Grammy Awards , along with numerous other awards and acknowledgments . Since its inauguration in 2001, eleven Pixar films have won
8000-583: The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature , including Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), the aforementioned Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4 , Brave (2012), Inside Out (2015), Coco (2017), and Soul (2020). Toy Story 3 and Up were also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture . In February 2009, Pixar executives John Lasseter , Brad Bird , Pete Docter , Andrew Stanton , and Lee Unkrich were presented with
8160-623: The Christmas shopping season . An added benefit of delaying Cars from November 4, 2005, to June 9, 2006, was to extend the time frame remaining on the Pixar-Disney contract, to see how things would play out between the two companies. Pending the Disney acquisition of Pixar, the two companies created a distribution deal for the intended 2007 release of Ratatouille , to ensure that if the acquisition failed, this one film would be released through Disney's distribution channels. In contrast to
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#17327979055068320-724: The El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 19, 1995, and was released in theaters in North America on November 22 of that year. It was the highest-grossing film during its opening weekend, eventually grossing over $ 373 million worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film of 1995 . The film received critical acclaim, with praise directed towards the technical innovation of the animation, script, Randy Newman 's score, appeal to all age groups, and voice performances (particularly Hanks and Allen), and holds
8480-648: The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the Venice Film Festival . The physical award was ceremoniously handed to Lucasfilm's founder, George Lucas . Pixar got its start in 1974, when New York Institute of Technology 's (NYIT) founder, Alexander Schure , who was also the owner of a traditional animation studio, established the Computer Graphics Lab (CGL) and recruited computer scientists who shared his ambitions about creating
8640-477: The video game crash of 1983 , Bushnell started selling some subsidiaries of PTT to keep the business afloat. Sente Technologies (another division, was founded to have games distributed in PTT stores) was sold to Bally Games and Kadabrascope was sold to Lucasfilm. The Kadabrascope assets were combined with the Computer Division of Lucasfilm. Coincidentally, one of Steve Jobs 's first jobs was under Bushnell in 1973 as
8800-417: The "Black Friday Incident". The results were disastrous, and Disney's head of feature animation, Peter Schneider, halted production. Katzenberg asked colleague Thomas Schumacher why the reels were bad, to which Schumacher answered, "Because it's not their movie anymore; it's completely not the movie that John set out to make." Lasseter was embarrassed by the current state of the film, later recalling, "It
8960-408: The 10- to 15-percent distribution fee. In addition, as part of any distribution agreement with Disney, Pixar demanded control over films already in production under the old agreement, including The Incredibles (2004) and Cars (2006). Disney considered these conditions unacceptable, but Pixar would not concede. Disagreements between Steve Jobs and Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner caused
9120-451: The 1990s and 2000s, Pixar gradually developed the "Pixar Braintrust", the studio's primary creative development process, in which all of its directors, writers, and lead storyboard artists regularly examine each other's projects and give very candid "notes", the industry term for constructive criticism . The Braintrust operates under a philosophy of a "filmmaker-driven studio", in which creatives help each other move their films forward through
9280-614: The Computer Graphics Lab. He was then reunited with Smith, who also made the journey from NYIT to Lucasfilm, and was made the director of the Graphics Group. At NYIT, the researchers pioneered many of the CG foundation techniques — in particular, the invention of the alpha channel by Catmull and Smith. Over the next several years, the CGL would produce a few frames of an experimental film called The Works . After moving to Lucasfilm,
9440-959: The El Capitan, where tickets included admission to the Totally Toy Story funhouse that Disney had built in the Hollywood Masonic Temple next door, the film opened on 2,281 screens on the 22nd and later expanded to 2,574. The film was also shown at the Berlin International Film Festival out of competition from February 15 to 26, 1996. Elsewhere, the film opened in March 1996. Marketing for Toy Story included $ 20 million spent by Disney for advertising as well as advertisers such as Burger King , PepsiCo , Coca-Cola , and Payless ShoeSource paying $ 125 million in promotions for
9600-407: The Pixar brand. In June 2023, Disney laid off 75 employees including the director of Lightyear Angus MacLane , and the film's producer Galyn Susman. During that same month, Elemental was released. During the film's opening weekend, Docter stated that Pixar "trained audiences that these films will be available for you on Disney+". Despite opening below projections, Elemental ultimately made
9760-557: The Principal Creative Adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering , which designs and builds the company's theme parks . Catmull retained his position as President of Pixar, while also becoming President of Walt Disney Animation Studios, reporting to Iger and Dick Cook , chairman of the Walt Disney Studios . Jobs's position as Pixar's chairman and chief executive officer was abolished, and instead, he took
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#17327979055069920-513: The Witch from Brave (2012). Additionally, Pixar is known for their films having expensive budgets, ranging from $ 150–200 million. Some of these films include Ratatouille (2007), Toy Story 3 (2010), Toy Story 4 (2019), Incredibles 2 (2018), Inside Out (2015), Inside Out 2 (2024), The Good Dinosaur (2015), the aforementioned Onward and Soul , Turning Red , Lightyear (both 2022), and Elemental (2023). In
10080-438: The acquisition was completed on May 5, 2006. The transaction catapulted Jobs, who owned 49.65% of total share interest in Pixar, to Disney's largest individual shareholder with 7%, valued at $ 3.9 billion, and a new seat on its board of directors. Jobs' new Disney holdings exceeded holdings belonging to Eisner, the previous top shareholder, who still held 1.7%; and Disney Director Emeritus Roy E. Disney , who held almost 1% of
10240-483: The actors recording their lines, and let the software do the inbetweening . To sync the characters' mouths and facial expressions to the actors' recorded voices, animators spent a week per eight seconds of animation, as Lasseter felt that automatic lip syncing would not properly convey a character's emotions. The shading team, led by Tom Porter , used scans of real objects, as well as textures drawn by artists and created with procedural generation algorithms, to "dress"
10400-567: The atmosphere to be puzzling and contentious. They later learned that while Katzenberg was pushing the idea of working with Pixar, Schneider did not want to bring in a non-Disney animation studio. Katzenberg arranged to meet directly with the Pixar contingent, this time including Lasseter and Jobs. The Pixar team proposed a Christmas television special , A Tin Toy Christmas , as a first step, but Katzenberg countered that as long as they were gearing up to transition from 30-second commercials to
10560-672: The award), Best Original Song for " You've Got a Friend in Me ", and Best Original Score —in addition to being honored with a non-competitive Special Achievement Academy Award . In 2005, Toy Story was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", one of nine films designated in its first year of eligibility. The success of Toy Story launched
10720-438: The character, like the one in A League of Their Own , is down-and-out and despicable." To gauge how an actor's voice might fit with a character, Lasseter borrowed a common Disney technique: animate a vocal monologue from a well-established actor to meld the actor's voice with the appearance or actions of the animated character. This early test footage, using Hanks' voice from Turner & Hooch , convinced Hanks to sign on to
10880-517: The characters, Woody was the most complex, as he required 723 motion controls, including 212 for his face and 58 for his mouth. The first piece of animation, a 30-second test, was delivered to Disney in June 1992, when the company requested a sample of what the film would look like. Lasseter wanted to impress Disney with several things in the test that could not be done in traditional, hand-drawn animation, such as Woody's yellow plaid shirt with red stripes,
11040-437: The characters. 27 animators worked on the film, using 400 computer models to animate the characters. Each character was first either created out of clay or modeled from a computer-drawn diagram before reaching the computer-animated design. Once the animators had a model, its articulation and motion controls were coded; this allowed each character to move in a variety of ways, such as talking, walking, or jumping. Out of all of
11200-508: The computer graphics industry's largest convention. However, the Image Computer had inadequate sales which threatened to end the company as financial losses grew. Jobs increased investment in exchange for an increased stake, reducing the proportion of management and employee ownership until eventually, his total investment of $ 50 million gave him control of the entire company. In 1989, Lasseter's growing animation department which
11360-462: The core, Lasseter said, "it's gotta be about the growth of the main character and how he changes." Actor John Ratzenberger , who had previously starred in the television series Cheers (1982–1993), has voiced a character in every Pixar feature film from Toy Story through Onward (2020). A non-speaking background character in Soul (2020) bears his likeness. Pixar paid tribute to Ratzenberger in
11520-450: The corporation's shares. Pixar shareholders received 2.3 shares of Disney common stock for each share of Pixar common stock redeemed. As part of the deal, John Lasseter, by then Executive Vice President, became Chief Creative Officer (reporting directly to president and CEO Bob Iger and consulting with Disney Director Roy E. Disney) of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios (including its division Disneytoon Studios ), as well as
11680-573: The day-to-day running of the studio facilities and products. After a few years, Lasseter and Catmull were able to successfully transfer the basic principles of the Pixar Braintrust to Disney Animation, although meetings of the Disney Story Trust are reportedly "more polite" than those of the Pixar Braintrust. Catmull later explained that after the merger, to maintain the studios' separate identities and cultures (notwithstanding
11840-610: The deal to ensure that Pixar remained a separate entity , a concern that analysts had expressed about the Disney deal. Some of those conditions were that Pixar HR policies would remain intact, including the lack of employment contracts. Also, the Pixar name was guaranteed to continue, and the studio would remain in its current Emeryville, California , location with the "Pixar" sign. Finally, branding of films made post-merger would be "Disney•Pixar" (beginning with Cars ). Jim Morris , producer of WALL-E (2008), became general manager of Pixar. In this new position, Morris took charge of
12000-573: The development of Toy Story , Pixar set up a division to work on Pixar video games called Pixar's Interactive Products Group, specifically Toy Story entries in the Disney's Animated Storybook and Disney's Activity Center . Due to the intense resources required, the division was eventually folded and the staff were redistributed to start creating short films to accompany Pixar's theatrical releases. Beginning with A Bug's Life , Pixar has created extra content for each of their films that are not part of
12160-415: The doll. If you give the doll a voice and animate it, you're creating a persona for it that might not be every little girl's dream and desire." Hasbro likewise refused to license G.I. Joe (mainly because Sid was going to blow one up, prompting the filmmakers to instead use a fictional toy, Combat Carl ), but they did license Mr. Potato Head . The only real-life toy in the film that was not in production
12320-413: The earlier Pixar deal, Ratatouille was meant to remain a Pixar property and Disney would have received a distribution fee. The completion of Disney's Pixar acquisition, however, nullified this distribution arrangement. After extended negotiations, Disney ultimately agreed on January 24, 2006, to buy Pixar for approximately $ 7.4 billion in an all-stock deal . Following Pixar shareholder approval,
12480-483: The end credits of Cars (2006) by parodying scenes from three of its earlier films ( Toy Story , Monsters, Inc. , and A Bug's Life ), replacing all of the characters with motor vehicle versions of them and giving each film an automotive-based title. After the third scene, Mack (his character in Cars ) realizes that the same actor has been voicing characters in every film. Due to the traditions that have occurred within
12640-503: The fact of common ownership and common senior management), he and Lasseter "drew a hard line" that each studio was solely responsible for its own projects and would not be allowed to borrow personnel from or lend tasks out to the other. The rule ensures that each studio maintains "local ownership" of projects and can be proud of its own work. Thus for example, when Pixar had issues with Ratatouille and Disney Animation had issues with Bolt (2008), "nobody bailed them out" and each studio
12800-410: The family's moving van. The script went through many changes before the final version of it. Lasseter decided Tinny was "too antiquated"; the character was first changed to a military action figure in the likes of G.I. Joe and was then given a space theme. Tinny's name changed to Lunar Larry, then Tempus from Morph, and eventually Buzz Lightyear (after astronaut Buzz Aldrin ). Lightyear's design
12960-411: The film then be counted toward the three-picture agreement, but Disney refused. Though profitable for both, Pixar later complained that the arrangement was not equitable. Pixar was responsible for creation and production, while Disney handled marketing and distribution. Profits and production costs were split equally, but Disney exclusively owned all story, character, and sequel rights and also collected
13120-435: The film's tone to be "edgier". After several disastrous story reels , production was halted and the script was rewritten to better reflect the tone and theme Pixar desired: "toys deeply want children to play with them, and ... this desire drives their hopes, fears, and actions". The studio, then consisting of a relatively small number of employees, produced Toy Story under minor financial constraints. Toy Story premiered at
13280-461: The film. Billy Crystal was approached to play Buzz, and was given his own monologue, utilizing dialogue from When Harry Met Sally . However, he turned down the role, believing the film would be unsuccessful due to its animation. Crystal regretted this upon seeing the film; he subsequently accepted the role of Mike Wazowski in the 2001 Pixar film Monsters, Inc. . In addition to Crystal, Bill Murray , Chevy Chase and Jim Carrey , along with
13440-541: The film. Marketing consultant Al Ries reflected on the promotion: "This will be a killer deal. How can a kid, sitting through a one-and-a-half-hour movie with an army of recognizable toy characters, not want to own one?" Despite this, Disney Consumer Products was slow to see the potential of Toy Story . When the Thanksgiving release date was announced in January 1995, many toy companies were accustomed to having eighteen months to two years of lead time and passed on
13600-416: The film. The film's signature song " You've Got a Friend in Me ", was written in one day. The song " Hakuna Matata " from The Lion King is heard briefly during the climax when Woody and Buzz are trying to get into the truck while riding RC. On Newman, Lasseter said, "His songs are touching, witty, and satirical, and he would deliver the emotional underpinning for every scene." The soundtrack for Toy Story
13760-422: The films and characters, including the rights to make sequels without Pixar's involvement, while Pixar would get approximately 12.5% of ticket sales. These early negotiations became a point of contention between Jobs and Eisner for many years. An agreement to produce a feature film based on Tin Toy with a working title of Toy Story was finalized, and production began soon thereafter. Originally, Toy Story
13920-528: The films and shorts such as anthropomorphic creatures and objects, and easter egg crossovers between films and shorts that have been spotted by Pixar fans, a blog post titled The Pixar Theory was published in 2013 by Jon Negroni, and popularized by the YouTube channel Super Carlin Brothers, proposing that all of the characters within the Pixar universe were related, surrounding Boo from Monsters Inc. and
14080-401: The first animated streaming film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature . Pixar's next two features, Luca and Turning Red , were also released free on Disney+ in June 2021 and March 2022, respectively. In 2021, several Pixar employees anonymously criticized Disney's decision to release their films direct to Disney+. Lightyear , Pixar's first movie to return to theaters
14240-437: The first film was still some years away, and they needed to focus on a proper product until then. Eventually, they decided they should be a hardware company in the meantime, with their Pixar Image Computer as the core product, a system primarily sold to governmental, scientific, and medical markets. They also used SGI computers. In 1983, Nolan Bushnell founded a new computer-guided animation studio called Kadabrascope as
14400-465: The following day. Overnight, Woody helps Buzz realize that his purpose is to make Andy happy, restoring Buzz's resolve. Sid takes Buzz out to blow him up, but Woody rallies the mutant toys to come to life in front of Sid and frighten him into never harming toys again. Now freed, Woody and Buzz pursue the Davis' moving truck , but Scud attacks Woody. Buzz stays behind to fight off the dog; Woody climbs into
14560-588: The following night at the Regency Center in San Francisco. According to David Price's 2008 book The Pixar Touch , the film deeply resonated with audiences, with even the adults being noticeably moved by the film. In some international territories, the theatrical release of the film was preceded by a re-release of the Roger Rabbit short Roller Coaster Rabbit . In addition to showing at
14720-508: The funds necessary to negotiate with Disney as an equal partner, and optimistic about the impact the finished film would have, Jobs decided that he would schedule an initial public offering (IPO) of Pixar just a week after the film's November release. Both Disney and Pixar held separate premieres for Toy Story , with Disney holding theirs at their flagship El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 19, 1995, and Pixar holding theirs
14880-520: The gang from Andy's room, we thought it would be great to let audiences experience the first two films all over again and in a brand new way. Translating the film into 3-D involved revisiting the original computer data and virtually placing a second camera into each scene, creating left eye and right eye views needed to achieve the perception of depth. Unique to computer animation, Lasseter referred to this process as "digital archaeology". The process took four months, as well as an additional six months for
15040-467: The global box office, reaching the milestone in 17 days. It also out-grossed Incredibles 2 to become the highest grossing Pixar film globally. When Steve Jobs , chief executive officer of Apple Inc. and Pixar, and John Lasseter , then-executive vice president of Pixar, decided to move their studios from a leased space in Point Richmond, California , to larger quarters of their own, they chose
15200-418: The human world, that's when I really blew out the 3-D to make it feel dangerous and deep and overwhelming. Pixar Pixar Animation Studios , known simply as Pixar ( / ˈ p ɪ k s ɑːr / ), is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California , known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios ,
15360-411: The income from these projects, the company still continued to lose money and Steve Jobs, as chairman of the board and now owner, often considered selling it. As late as 1994, Jobs contemplated selling Pixar to other companies such as Hallmark Cards , Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen , and Oracle CEO and co-founder Larry Ellison . After learning from New York critics that Toy Story would probably be
15520-428: The largest customer for Pixar's computers. Jobs made it apparent to Katzenberg that although Disney was happy with Pixar, it was not the other way around: "We want to do a film with you," said Jobs. "That would make us happy." Catmull, Smith, and head of animation Ralph Guggenheim met with Walt Disney Feature Animation president Peter Schneider in the summer of 1990 to discuss making a feature film, but they found
15680-557: The launch of Disney+ , Pixar debuted SparkShorts , experimental shorts done by Pixar staff. Pixar released Onward on March 6, 2020. However, due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic , the film underperformed at the box office and was released onto rental digital services on March 20, and later on Disney+ on April 3. Due to the pandemic, Soul was moved to November 2020, and ultimately released on December 25, 2020, on Disney+ at no additional cost to subscribers, and later became
15840-459: The layoff of 30 employees in the company's computer hardware department—including the company's president, Chuck Kolstad, reduced the total number of employees to just 42, approximately its original number. On March 6, 1991, Steve Jobs bought the company from its employees and became the full owner. He contemplated folding it into NeXT, but the NeXT's co-founders refused. A few months later Pixar made
16000-402: The layout department, led by Craig Good, avoided the sweeping camera shots popular in computer animation at the time, and instead focused on emulating what would have been possible had the film been shot in live-action with real film cameras. The animation department, led by Rich Quade and Ash Brannon , used Pixar's Menv software to hand pose the characters at key frames based on videotape of
16160-416: The main character in a story should be defined by how they react to the obstacles they face, and that it is those obstacles that make characters interesting. Disney also appointed the duo Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow and, later, Joss Whedon to help develop the script. Whedon thought that while the script did not work, it had "a great structure". He added the character of Rex and sought a pivotal role for
16320-543: The main story. For their early theatrical releases, this content was in the form of outtakes and appeared as part of the film's credits . For each of their films, this content was a short made exclusively for the DVD release of the film. Toy Story 4 was the first film not to have a theatrical short before it. Coco and Onward had theatrical shorts from other subsidiaries related to Disney. Lightyear and Inside Out 2 had no theatrical shorts before them. Elemental
16480-582: The name "Woody" to pay homage to the Western actor Woody Strode . The story department drew inspiration from films such as Midnight Run and The Odd Couple , and Lasseter screened Hayao Miyazaki 's Castle in the Sky for further influence. Since Toy Story ' s script writers had little experience with feature films, they attended a seminar given by screenwriter Robert McKee . They were inspired by his guidance, based on Aristotle 's Poetics , that
16640-427: The negotiations to cease in 2004, with Disney forming Circle Seven Animation and Jobs declaring that Pixar was actively seeking partners other than Disney. Despite this announcement and several talks with Warner Bros. , Sony Pictures , and 20th Century Fox , Pixar did not enter negotiations with other distributors, although a Warner Bros. spokesperson told CNN , "We would love to be in business with Pixar. They are
16800-471: The next few years, a designer suggested naming a new digital compositing computer the "Picture Maker". Smith suggested that the laser-based device have a catchier name, and came up with "Pixer", which after a meeting was changed to "Pixar". According to Michael Rubin , the author of Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution , Smith and three other employees came up with the name during
16960-405: The objects in the film. The film required 800,000 machine hours and 114,240 frames of animation in total, divided between 1,561 shots that totaled over 77 minutes. Pixar was able to render less than 30 seconds of the film per day. Lasseter did not want to make Toy Story into a musical, as he felt that it would make the film feel less genuine. Whedon later agreed, saying "It would have been
17120-419: The open market for Macintosh and Windows systems. RenderMan is one of the leading 3D packages of the early 1990s, and Typestry is a special-purpose 3D text renderer that competed with RayDream. During this period of time, Pixar continued its successful relationship with Walt Disney Feature Animation , a studio whose corporate parent would ultimately become its most important partner. As 1991 began, however,
17280-456: The other toys believe Woody has deliberately killed Buzz. Andy takes Woody with him, but Buzz furiously confronts him in the car. The two fight, fall out of the car, and are left behind; after a further quarrel, they hitch a ride to the restaurant on a Pizza Planet delivery truck. At Pizza Planet, Buzz mistakes a claw crane full of toy aliens for a rocket, and climbs in, pursued by Woody. Sid Phillips , Andy's sadistic next-door neighbor, takes
17440-437: The production shutdown was "a very scary time" according to story department manager BZ Petroff. Schneider appealed directly to Eisner to cancel the project altogether. Stanton and the other story artists worked to quickly produce new script pages, with help from consultants such as Whedon, and the first revisions were completed in two weeks as promised. Pixar's script rewrites took three months, and saw Woody transformed from
17600-702: The project, Pixar's employees are merely given six months and limited budgets to develop these animated short films. Pixar made a series of shorts featuring Luxo Jr. for Sesame Street , which were Light & Heavy , Surprise , Up and Down , and Front and Back . Pixar also produced numerous animation tests, commonly confused with theatrical shorts, including Beach Chair and Flags and Waves . They also produced several commercials after selling their software division to support themselves until Toy Story became successful. Pixar continues to produce commercials related to their films. Furthermore, in 1988, Apple's Advanced Technology Group produced " Pencil Test ,"
17760-586: The project. Disney shopped the film at the Toy Fair trade show in February 1995, where only the small Canadian company Thinkway Toys, was interested in licensing the toy rights for the Toy Story characters. Disney promoted the film by inserting its trailer into the home-video re-release of Cinderella , showing a behind-the-scenes documentary on the Disney Channel , and incorporating the characters into
17920-471: The reflections in Buzz's helmet and the decals on his spacesuit, or Venetian blind shadows falling across Andy's room. There were eight teams that were responsible for different aspects of all of the shots. The art department was responsible for determining the overall color and lighting scheme. The layout department was responsible for determining the position of all elements of the shot, as well as programming
18080-468: The release of Return of the Jedi , they knew he would most likely sell the whole Graphics Group. Worried that the employees would be lost to them if that happened, which would prevent the creation of the first computer-animated movie, they concluded that the best way to keep the team together was to turn the group into an independent company. But Moore's Law also suggested that sufficient computing power for
18240-508: The releases of A Bug's Life (1998), Monsters, Inc. (2001), and Finding Nemo (2003). The success of Toy Story (1995) made Pixar the first major computer-animation studio to successfully produce theatrical feature films. The majority of the animation industry was (and still is) located in Los Angeles, and Pixar is located 350 miles (560 km) north in the San Francisco Bay Area . Traditional hand-drawn animation
18400-412: The resources the group needed but contributing to NYIT's financial difficulties. Eventually, the group realized they needed to work in a real film studio to reach their goal. Francis Ford Coppola then invited Smith to his house for a three-day media conference, where Coppola and George Lucas shared their visions for the future of digital moviemaking. When Lucas approached the group and offered them
18560-482: The right choice. In May 1986 Pixar signed a contract with Disney, who eventually bought and used the Pixar Image Computer and custom software written by Pixar as part of its Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) project, to migrate the laborious ink and paint part of the 2D animation process to a more automated method. The company's first feature film to be released using this new animation method
18720-424: The same. As a compromise, although the characters would not sing, the movie would feature non-diegetic songs as background music. Despite this not happening, the first musical number is seen at the end of Toy Story 2 (1999), and Toy Story: The Musical (2012) is the first version of the original to actually feature the cast of characters singing. Randy Newman was hired, and composed three original songs for
18880-451: The scene where Sid interrogates Woody with a magnifying glass. The torture scene was removed because the crew felt that the audience would be so invested in Buzz and Woody's characters by that point that they would be uncomfortable watching them being subjected to such violence. Another scene, in which Woody tries to get Buzz's attention when he was stuck in the box crate while insincerely apologizing for accidentally getting him knocking out of
19040-431: The scenes. The "Render Farm" used Sun Microsystems computers, running around the clock, to produce the final frames of the film. The camera team recorded the finished frames, which had been rendered at a resolution of 1536 by 922, onto film stock. Finally, Skywalker Sound mixed sound effects, the musical score, and the dialogue to create the audio for the film. In order to make the film feel as realistic as possible,
19200-485: The script on January 19, 1993, at which point voice casting began. Paul Newman , who subsequently accepted the role of Doc Hudson in the 2006 Pixar film Cars , was considered for the role of Woody. Robin Williams and Clint Eastwood were also considered for Woody, but Lasseter always wanted Tom Hanks to play the role. Lasseter claimed that Hanks "has the ability to take emotions and make them appealing. Even if
19360-433: The start of the winter holiday season. Sources indicate that Jobs lacked confidence in the film during its production, and had been exploring the possibility of selling Pixar to companies such as Hallmark Cards and Microsoft . However, as the film progressed, Jobs, like Schneider, became increasingly passionate about the film and the transformative nature of what Pixar might be able to accomplish. Eager for Pixar to have
19520-413: The studio proceeded with slightly smaller layoffs: 175 employees or approximately 14 percent of the studio's workforce of over 1,300 employees. The layoffs occurred as the studio began to rely less on direct-to-streaming series and more on feature films intended primarily for theatrical exhibition. On June 14 of the same year, Inside Out 2 was released and became financially successful. The film had
19680-402: The sunroof of Mrs. Davis' car, landing safely inside. As the toys listen in on the Christmas gift opening in the new house, Mr. Potato Head is delighted when Molly gets a Mrs. Potato Head . Woody and Buzz jokingly ponder what gift could be "worse" than Buzz, only to nervously smile at each other when Andy gets a dachshund puppy . John Lasseter 's first experience with computer animation
19840-465: The team worked on creating the precursor to RenderMan , called REYES (for "renders everything you ever saw"), and developed several critical technologies for CG — including particle effects and various animation tools. John Lasseter was hired to the Lucasfilm team for a week in late 1983 with the title "interface designer"; he animated the short film The Adventures of André & Wally B. In
20000-505: The toys with laughter. Toy Story was both Hanks' and Allen's first animated film, and they recorded their lines together to make their characters' chemistry and interactions realistic. Every couple of weeks, Lasseter and his team showed Disney their latest storyboards or footage. Disney was impressed by Pixar's technical innovation, but less so of the plot. Katzenberg discarded most of Pixar's script ideas, giving his own extensive notes. Katzenberg primarily wanted to add "more edginess" to
20160-402: The truck, and pushes RC out to rescue Buzz. Still thinking Woody has killed another toy, the others also toss him out of the truck. Woody and Buzz pursue the truck on RC, and the other toys see them and realize their mistake. RC's batteries run out, forcing Woody to ignite the rocket strapped to Buzz. Buzz opens his wings to sever the tape just before the rocket explodes; he and Woody glide through
20320-429: The two films to add the 3-D. The lead stereographer Bob Whitehill oversaw this process and sought to achieve an effect that affected the emotional storytelling of the film: When I would look at the films as a whole, I would search for story reasons to use 3-D in different ways. In Toy Story , for instance, when the toys were alone in their world, I wanted it to feel consistent with a safer world. And when they went out to
20480-421: The two from the crane to his house, where they encounter his Bull Terrier Scud and his "mutant" toys, made from parts of other toys he has destroyed. Buzz, after watching a television commercial promoting him, suffers an existential crisis , realizing he is a toy after all. He attempts to fly but falls and breaks his arm. After Sid's toys fix Buzz, Sid tapes Buzz to a firework rocket , planning to blow him up
20640-514: The two main characters, as Disney wanted Toy Story to appeal to both children and adults, and they asked for adult references to be added to the film. The characters ended up being stripped of their charm, with Hanks, while recording Woody's dialogue for the story reels, pointed out that the Woody character had been made into a "real jerk". Pixar screened the first half of the film for Disney executives on November 19, 1993—an event they later dubbed
20800-470: The two worried about the arrival of Andy's new puppy. The crew had difficulty analysing the film's quality due to footage being in scattered pieces. Some animators felt the film would be a significant disappointment commercially but felt animators and animation fans would find it interesting. Schneider had grown optimistic about the film as it neared completion, and he announced a United States release date of November, coinciding with Thanksgiving weekend and
20960-441: The tyrannosaur , Hamm the piggy bank , and Bo Peep the porcelain doll — become concerned that Andy might receive something that will replace them. To calm them, Sheriff Woody , Andy's favorite toy and their de facto leader, sends Sarge and his green army men to spy on Andy's birthday party with a baby monitor . Andy receives a Buzz Lightyear action figure , who believes he is an actual Space Ranger and does not know he
21120-428: The virtual camera's position and movements. The animation department created the movements of the characters, generally with one animator being assigned to animate an entire shot, but occasionally with each character having its own animator. The shading team used Pixar's RenderMan software to assign surface textures and reflectivity properties to objects. The lighting team placed global, spot, and flood lighting within
21280-473: The window, was shortened because the creators felt it would lose the energy of the film. A test screening in July 1995 received encouraging responses from the audience, but the film was not rated as highly as had been hoped, leading to another last-minute round of edits. Eisner, who attended the screening, suggested that the final shot of the film should be of both Woody and Buzz, leading to the film's final shot of
21440-457: The world's first computer-animated film. Edwin Catmull and Malcolm Blanchard were the first to be hired and were soon joined by Alvy Ray Smith and David DiFrancesco some months later, who were the four original members of the Computer Graphics Lab, located in a converted two-story garage acquired from the former Vanderbilt - Whitney estate. Schure invested significant funds into the computer graphics lab, approximately $ 15 million, providing
21600-489: The year. In its first half-hour of trading, Pixar stock shot from $ 22 to $ 45, delaying trading because of unmatched buy orders. Shares climbed to US$ 49 and closed the day at $ 39. The company continued to make the television commercials during the production of Toy Story , which came to an end on July 9, 1996, when Pixar announced they would shut down its television commercial unit, which counted 18 employees, to focus on longer projects and interactive entertainment. During
21760-419: Was Inside Out 2 (2024). The studio has also produced many short films . As of July 2023 , its feature films have earned over $ 15 billion at the worldwide box office with an average gross of $ 589 million per film. Toy Story 3 (2010), Finding Dory (2016), Incredibles 2 (2018), Toy Story 4 (2019) and the aforementioned Inside Out 2 all grossed over $ 1 billion and are among
21920-409: Was The Rescuers Down Under (1990). In a bid to drive sales of the system and increase the company's capital, Jobs suggested releasing the product to the mainstream market. Pixar employee John Lasseter, who had long been working on not-for-profit short demonstration animations, such as Luxo Jr. (1986) to show off the device's capabilities, premiered his creations to great fanfare at SIGGRAPH ,
22080-474: Was Slinky Dog, which had been discontinued since the 1970s. When designs for Slinky were sent to Betty James (Slinky inventor Richard James 's wife) she said that Pixar had improved the toy and that it was "cuter" than the original. On October 2, 2009, Toy Story was re-released in Disney Digital 3-D . The film was also released with Toy Story 2 as a double feature for a two-week run which
22240-456: Was "fantastic" in the role. Before Wallace Shawn and Jim Varney were cast as Rex and Slinky Dog, Rick Moranis and John Cleese were originally considered for the roles. To cast Andy, Pixar held an open call for young male actors to bring a toy with them. John Morris (who voices Andy in the film) brought multiple toys, specifically 45 X-Men figures, contrary to the instructions of bringing just one, and Pixar reacted to his dumping of
22400-402: Was a story filled with the most unhappy, mean characters that I've ever seen." Katzenberg allowed him to take the script back to Pixar for rewrites, and the production crew shifted to television commercials while the head writers worked out a new script, being funded personally by Jobs until Disney resumed production. Although Lasseter attempted to keep morale high by remaining outwardly buoyant,
22560-468: Was announced that Lee Unkrich would be leaving Pixar after 25 years. On June 21, 2019, Toy Story 4 was released, surpassing the widest opening worldwide weekend record that Incredibles 2 set. The film would make over $ 1 billion and win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. During the 2019 D23 Expo , Pixar announced that their next film, Soul , would release in 2020. Ahead of
22720-418: Was closed down to refocus Pixar's efforts at its main headquarters. In November 2014, Morris was promoted to president of Pixar, while his counterpart at Disney Animation, general manager Andrew Millstein, was also promoted to president of that studio. Both continued to report to Catmull, who retained the title of president of both Disney Animation and Pixar. On November 21, 2017, Lasseter announced that he
22880-414: Was designed so that traditional animators would require a minimum amount of training before becoming productive. In a 2007 interview with PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley , Lasseter said that Pixar's films follow the same theme of self-improvement as the company itself has: with the help of friends or family, a character ventures out into the real world and learns to appreciate his friends and family. At
23040-416: Was during his work as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation , when two of his friends showed him the light-cycle scene from Tron . It was an eye-opening experience that awakened Lasseter to the possibilities offered by the new medium of computer-generated animation. Lasseter tried to pitch The Brave Little Toaster as a fully computer-animated film to Disney, but the idea was rejected and Lasseter
23200-487: Was extended due to its success. In addition, the film's second sequel, Toy Story 3 , was also released in the 3-D format. Lasseter commented on the new 3-D re-release: The Toy Story films and characters will always hold a very special place in our hearts and we're so excited to be bringing this landmark film back for audiences to enjoy in a whole new way thanks to the latest in 3-D technology. With Toy Story 3 shaping up to be another great adventure for Buzz, Woody, and
23360-535: Was fired. He then went on to work at Lucasfilm and in 1986, he became a founding member of Pixar . In 1986, Pixar was purchased by entrepreneur and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs . At Pixar, Lasseter created short, computer-animated films to show off the Pixar Image Computer 's capabilities. In 1988, Lasseter produced the short film Tin Toy , which was told from the perspective of a toy, referencing Lasseter's love of classic toys. Tin Toy won
23520-458: Was going to feature "Tinny", the wind-up one-man band toy from the Tin Toy short film, along with "the dummy", a ventriloquist's dummy . While the film's premise was still about toys' desire to be played with by children, the rest of the film's script, which involved Tinny being left behind at a gas station, meeting up with the dummy, and having a series of adventures before finding their way into
23680-445: Was impressed with what he heard. The two companies began negotiations, although they disagreed on key points including whether Disney would get the rights to Pixar's animation technology or whether Pixar would retain partial ownership of the films, characters, and home video and sequel rights. As Pixar was nearing bankruptcy and desperate for funds, they settled on a deal that would allow Disney to have complete ownership and control of
23840-398: Was in the works, entitled Mythic Rock . However, it was never released. At the 2013 Disney D23 Expo, it was announced that a fifth episode of Cars Toons : Tales from Radiator Springs , entitled To Protect and Serve , was in production. However, it was never released. Pixar was working on an untitled follow-up series, but it was quietly cancelled. Toy Story Toy Story
24000-471: Was modeled on the suits worn by Apollo astronauts as well as the aforementioned G.I. Joe action figures. Also, the green and purple color scheme on Lightyear's suit was inspired by Lasseter and his wife, Nancy, whose favorite colors are green and purple, respectively. Woody was inspired by a Casper the Friendly Ghost doll that Lasseter had when he was a child; he was a ventriloquist's dummy with
24160-414: Was not mediocre pay but the allure of taking part in the first computer-animated feature. Lasseter said of the challenges of computer animation, "We had to make things look more organic. Every leaf and blade of grass had to be created. We had to give the world a sense of history. So the doors are banged up, the floors have scuffs." The film began with animated storyboards to guide the animators in developing
24320-514: Was originally composed of just four people (Lasseter, Bill Reeves , Eben Ostby , and Sam Leffler ), was turned into a division that produced computer-animated commercials for outside companies. In April 1990, Pixar sold its hardware division, including all proprietary hardware technology and imaging software, to Vicom Systems, and transferred 18 of Pixar's approximately 100 employees. In the same year Pixar moved from San Rafael to Richmond, California . Pixar released some of its software tools on
24480-404: Was produced by Walt Disney Records and was released on November 22, 1995, the week of the film's release. The film's editors, including Lee Unkrich , worked on Toy Story up until the September 1995 deadline to deliver a final cut for scoring and sound design. According to Unkrich, a scene removed from the original final edit featured Sid torturing Buzz and Woody violently at his house before
24640-410: Was released in June 2022. The film became a box-office failure with Deadline Hollywood calculating the film lost the studio $ 106 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. In September 2022, Jonas Rivera was promoted to Executive VP of Film Production at Pixar overseeing all film and streaming production. In December 2022, Disney CEO Bob Iger noted that they would rely more on
24800-402: Was required "to solve the problem on its own" despite knowing that there were personnel at the other studio who theoretically could have helped. On April 20, 2010, Pixar opened Pixar Canada in the downtown area of Vancouver , British Columbia, Canada. The roughly 2,000 square meters studio produced seven short films based on Toy Story and Cars characters. In October 2013, the studio
24960-430: Was spun out as a corporation in February 1986 by Catmull and Smith. Among the 38 remaining employees were Malcolm Blanchard, David DiFrancesco, Ralph Guggenheim , and Bill Reeves, who had been part of the team since the days of NYIT. Tom Duff , also an NYIT member, would later join Pixar after its formation. With Lucas's 1983 divorce, which coincided with the sudden dropoff in revenues from Star Wars licenses following
25120-568: Was still a computer hardware company, when John Lasseter was the only professional animator in the company's small animation department. Starting with Geri's Game , after Pixar had converted into an animation studio , all later shorts have been produced with a larger crew and budget. Pixar produced four CGI shorts for the educational TV series Sesame Street between 1990 and 1994. The shorts illustrate different weights and directions starring Luxo Jr. and Luxo — Light & Heavy , Surprise , Up and Down , and Front and Back . During
25280-409: Was still the dominant medium for feature animated films. With the scarcity of Los Angeles-based animators willing to move their families so far north to give up traditional animation and try computer animation, Pixar's new hires at this time either came directly from college or had worked outside feature animation. For those who had traditional animation skills, the Pixar animation software Marionette
25440-408: Was taking a six-month leave of absence after acknowledging what he called "missteps" in his behavior with employees in a memo to staff. According to The Hollywood Reporter and The Washington Post , Lasseter had a history of alleged sexual misconduct towards employees. On June 8, 2018, it was announced that Lasseter would leave Disney Animation and Pixar at the end of the year, but would take on
25600-433: Was the first film, released theatrically in the United States, to have a Pixar-produced short in front of it since Incredibles 2 . (first release) The Nightmare Before Christmas (second release) SparkShorts is a series of animated short films produced by Pixar filmmakers and artists, similar to its sister series Short Circuit from Walt Disney Animation Studios . It consists of longer independent shorts. Under
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